iTechGuides is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more
Yes. A 2026 study of Tibet’s Guliya Ice Cap supports the presence of ice older than 100,000 years and a reconstructed record extending to about 128,000 years. That is evidence from one high-altitude ice cap—not proof that every glacier or patch of permafrost contains ice from the last ice age. The age estimate also sits within an active scientific debate about Guliya’s chronology.
What the Guliya study found
In a 2026 paper in Science Advances, Lonnie Thompson and colleagues compared ice cores drilled on the Guliya Plateau in 1992 and 2015. The approximately 310-meter cores have similar oxygen-isotope patterns, which the authors interpret as evidence that the environmental signal is reproducible. Their analysis supports a Guliya ice record older than 100,000 years and a timescale reaching about 128,000 years. The latter is a reconstruction supported by several lines of evidence, not an exact date assigned to every layer or every part of the ice cap. Read the study in Science Advances.
How the researchers built the timescale
The authors used beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 evidence associated with the Laschamp Geomagnetic Excursion, an event dated to about 41,000 years ago. They also compared the ice-core record with oxygen-isotope records from nearby Asian monsoon cave deposits. The combined evidence supports the extended chronology; it is more than a simple direct measurement of the age of each ice layer.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
The study also reports radiocarbon-dated ice from the glacier margin that supports the presence of glacial-stage ice. Isotope ratios in the 2015 core support ice older than 100,000 years. These findings concern the Guliya site and the authors’ interpretation of its core and margin evidence.
#1 Best Overall
Why Guliya’s age is disputed
A 2025 study challenged the chronology previously assigned to the iconic 1992 Guliya core. Hou and colleagues dated a separate core drilled in 2021 and reported an age under 3,000 years at 175.1 meters. At the stratigraphically equivalent depth, the 1992 core had previously been assigned an age of about 100,000 years. The papers therefore do not date an identical sample using identical methods: they examine different cores and apply different dating evidence. See the 2025 paper’s abstract indexed by PubMed.
| Study | Core and evidence | Age conclusion |
|---|---|---|
| Thompson and colleagues, 2026 | Composite comparison of 1992 and 2015 cores; cosmogenic-isotope evidence, including the Laschamp marker, and comparison with nearby cave isotope records. | Supports ice older than 100,000 years and a timescale reaching about 128,000 years. |
| Hou and colleagues, 2025 | Separate 2021 core; radiometric dates including 210Pb, 39Ar and 14C. At 175.1 meters in that core, the reported age is under 3,000 years; the 1992 core had been assigned about 100,000 years at the stratigraphically equivalent depth. | Challenges the chronology assigned to the 1992 core. |
The 2026 paper adds evidence for an older Guliya timescale, but the chronology issue remains important context. The defensible takeaway is that the newer study supports very old ice at this site while researchers have published a conflicting chronology based on a different core.
Rank #2
What “ice from the last ice age” means
People now live in the Holocene, a warmer interglacial interval following the last glacial period. Calling Guliya’s old ice “left over from the last ice age” is a readable shorthand for preserved ice evidence extending back through a glacial cycle. It does not mean the entire ice cap has one age, or that an age estimate for one site applies to ice elsewhere.
Recommended Free Tools
Ice cores are useful because they preserve environmental signals that scientists interpret rather than read as a simple calendar. Oxygen isotopes can help estimate past temperatures, while trapped air can provide evidence about atmospheric composition; dust and other material can add further clues. Those are general capabilities of ice-core science, not a claim that every proxy has been analyzed in the Guliya study. The French Senate’s overview of polar ice-core research explains these approaches.
Rank #3
Why permafrost ice is not automatically ancient
“Permafrost ice” describes ice in frozen ground; the label alone does not establish its age. Submarine permafrost offers a useful contrast: after sea levels rose, ancient Arctic shelf permafrost was submerged, but present-day processes can also form ice near the seafloor. MBARI reports that brackish groundwater from melting ancient permafrost can rise and refreeze under current conditions. MBARI describes the submarine processes.
A permit request from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo said the age of Mauna Kea permafrost ice had not been determined; it might date to the last Ice Age or be more recent. It should not be cited as a confirmed example of surviving last-ice-age ice. See the university’s April 2, 2019 document.
Quick Recap
Best Value
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
